BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — In the nosebleed seats of a nearly-empty Baku Olympic stadium coated with a layer of dust, activists used a giant banner to beam the words 'Pay Up' to the world.
BYBAKU, Azerbaijan — In the nosebleed seats of a nearly-empty Baku Olympic stadium coated with a layer of dust, activists used a giant banner to beam the words"Pay Up" to the world.
It's"really hard to make our demands heard," said Bianca Castro, a climate activist from Portugal. She's been to several COPs in the past and remembers years when there were thousands of protestors in the streets, and a multitude of strikes and actions throughout the event. But at the stadium's seats, they were told exactly where and when they could stand and chants were restricted.
Despite the challenges and what some see as a depressing mood, activists say it remains a critical time to speak up about the historical and present-day injustices that are in desperate need of money and attention. Meanwhile, across town in a downtown Baku building, activists paint, snip fabric and sculpt with cardboard and papier-mache in a quest for visually compelling symbols of climate action. The art space was once a place of community, where people came to pour their feelings into a creative outlet, said Amalen Sathananthar, coordinator at a collective called the Artivist Network. But now his team keeps the art space private and doesn't reveal its location because of security concerns.
It's an issue that's"particularly hard for me as someone from the Philippines," Bongon added, but called it"really uplifting" to watch the action come together. The Artivist Network have been doing this for a long time, attending COPs unofficially since the early 2000s and officially since they formalized in 2018. Amalen's seen the multitude of ways protestors have had to argue with host countries and the UNFCCC governing body to get space for activism.
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